


if you tell me where you’re going, I’ll tell you where you’re bound

by paxlux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:04:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxlux/pseuds/paxlux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the only thing he knows to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you tell me where you’re going, I’ll tell you where you’re bound

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-series.

[stains]

Today the color of the world is white. Stark, dirty white and it reminds him to do laundry. He’s wearing his last pair of jeans and those have a smear on one thigh where he wiped the blood off his fingers. It’s gone dark and brown and he can pretend that it’s oil, like the smudge on the sleeve of his shirt. 

Dean wanders the room, snatching up clothes, shoving them into a duffle. He finds a pair of jeans under the bed, denim scrubbed light because once he forgot that he had salt in his pockets, an experiment to see if a spirit could still touch him which resulted in two dislocated fingers and a black eye, he’d washed those jeans with the salt in the pockets and they’d come outta the dryer faded clean. He finds a pair of boxers in the bathroom under a pile of damp towels and a sock in the bedsheets. 

He remembers to search all the pockets for salt and change. And there’s change in the car, so he throws the bag into the backseat and starts looking through the footwells and in the cracks of the seats and in the glove compartment.

Three plastic lighters, two pairs of broken sunglasses, one newspaper article about a scarecrow that came to life and Dean has five dollars in quarters.

He stops by the motel’s front desk to ask for directions to the nearest laundromat and the woman behind the counter smiles at him like she can’t really see him and she’s dreaming. She leans on a hand and points down the street, two blocks down, two blocks over and you can’t miss it, big yellow sign with the ‘mat’ part blacked out because the owner hasn’t replaced the bulbs in the letters in something like five weeks.

She turns back to her magazine before he can even say thanks, so he shrugs, flipping his keys in his fingers, and she was right, the ‘mat’ is out and there’s a kid propped against the glass, smoking.

Dean goes in, finds three washers next to each other in the rattling hum and smell of softener, and starts feeding the machines. He counts out the quarters he’ll need for dryers and he’s got some left over and nothing but time on his hands.

There’s a convenience store across the street, so he walks, then runs as a Cadillac comes around the corner. Grabbing a drink, some chips and a newspaper, Dean thinks he’s forgotten something, that itch that says he missed a step, dropped something or. It’s there, just outta the corner of his eye, but he can’t remember. He frowns a little to himself as he unwinds bills and the guy at the cash register waves at the kid who was smoking outside the laundromat as he walks by, headed back towards the beer.

The crossword’s pretty hard for a local paper, it’s not the New York times and it’s Wednesday, not Sunday, but Dean gets most of the words and the rest just escape him. He does the word jumble and the sudoku and reads the funnies. Someone lost their cat, someone’s looking for love and someone’s selling their motorcycle. He’d be tempted by the motorcycle, but he’s leaving town as soon as the dryers ding and he wouldn’t trade his car for anything in the world.

He rubs at the stain on his thigh. These’ll be his gravedigging jeans until he can do laundry again.

The laundromat is pretty empty, so Dean can’t people-watch, so he looks out the window, past the fluorescent reflection and follows the cars with his eyes as they go through the intersection.

 

[oil rags]

Some days, these are the times he likes best. It’s almost sundown, the heat of the day is breaking, and he’s got some documentary about military battles on in the background. He’s half-listening, strategy and artillery positions and encampments, how those boys tried to take the hill and had to fall back due to overwhelming enemy firepower. 

Dean spreads the guns out on the sheet he’s laid down, an old ragged thing, if he remembers correctly, it was a bedsheet from a motel thousands of miles and many years ago, and Dad had yanked it off the bed, torn it into strips and squares because Dean was bleeding from his belly, and if he remembers correctly, Sam started screaming right as they got through the door and tried to take a swing at Dad. But it was a bedsheet and it’s been used for bandages and oil rags ever since and Dean had made sure to save a piece big enough to put the weapons on because he already smells like gun oil, he doesn’t need to sleep in a bed that smells like it as well.

The car needs a little tuning too, there’s something off in the rhythm that comes from under the hood. He’ll look at it in the morning and he’ll probably use the rag he’s got in his fingers as he takes apart a shotgun.

The hill couldn’t be taken, no matter how many times they tried or companies of men they sent, strategy and artillery positions and encampments, and it sounds like one of Dad’s stories, stuck in the jungle with the heat and the rain that came outta nowhere and you couldn’t see a damn thing, which is why the traps worked so well, like the devil’s own construction, and no one knew what hill they were supposed to be taking or where the tunnels were, threading out under their feet like spider caverns.

He cleans the guns because he likes the shine and the precision clicks and the next time he pulls the trigger, he knows it’ll fire and the bullet will fly straight at the heart or mouth of whatever is in front of him, sometimes behind him, sometimes trying to sneak up on his blind left, he doesn’t ever have to worry about his guns letting him down.

By the time he’s finished, it’s after midnight and he pops his knuckles and it’s the American Revolution and fighting hasn’t changed, it’s still just as bloody.

 

[blood in the picture]

It could be a smear of ink. It could be. Dean hunches closer to the paper and the picture swims grainy. 

He hopes it isn’t blood, that the body of the girl he’s looking at isn’t bleeding out onto the concrete. 

People bled dry. Or left to bleed out dry. Could be ghouls. Could be something Dean’s never seen before.

Fiddling with his pen, he hunches close to the picture again. The girl’s hair is spread out beneath her and it’s light in the all the blacks and grays, so it must’ve been blonde, maybe a bright brown. Maybe strawberry, like the waitress at the truck stop, the one who offered him a smoke and some time pressing her up against the bricks, pressing up into her and he could almost taste her, how it would feel and the cigarette kisses they’d share, but he was too tired and too hungry, so he’d turned her down and left a big tip. He wasn’t paying her off, wasn’t apologizing, but. 

There’s a puddle around the girl, the sidewalk shiny even for this homegrown newspaper photograph. Article says it had rained earlier, but it could be blood. Twenty years old, same age as Sam now, and Dean shakes his head, hunches close to the paper again. 

She’s only the fourth in a string of seven. All girls. 

Dad said something once about they’d wanted to have a girl, thought maybe Sam would be a girl until the ultrasound told them different, Mary thought she was carrying a girl, and his mother was always Mom to him and Sam, but always Mary to Dad, he never sugarcoated how much he would have died in her place, they’d wanted to have a girl, and maybe would have tried again later after Sam was born.

You gotta look out for the girls, Dean, I know a lot of the things out there were probably girls once, but you gotta look out for them.

He’s trying, but it’s really fucking hard. It might be blood in the picture, especially those dark areas on her arms. And on her blouse. And on her jeans and her sneakers, on the baseball cap that’s lying next to her. The spilled bag of groceries.

The only thing he can do is catch this fucker. And if it’s a girl, her mouth slick red, he’ll put a bullet in her brain because she shouldn’t be that way, it’s only way to make things right. He’s not apologizing, but.

None of them should.

He chews on the end of his pen and goes to the next article, three months later, when the leaves were starting to fall off the trees, harvest time and don’t that beat all.

He chews on his pen and when he reaches up to uncap it, to make a note, there’s ink all on his fingers and it’s on his lips and his tongue, now he can taste it, too late.

Breathing blue as he heads to the bathroom. Spits ink into the sink and the last time it happened, bit his way through a pen, Sam had laughed himself sick. 

Dean washes his hands and rinses his mouth and heads back to the table. Looks like there’s blood in this picture too.

 

[knife and fork]

Obviously, it’s too much to expect that Dean can get a decent cup of coffee anywhere in America. Obviously, since this diner doesn’t seem to be trying that hard to make sure that the customer is always right and properly caffeinated to boot. 

After eight at night on a Tuesday, so the place isn’t exactly hopping, Dean could get a little service, that’d be nice, because he’s been staring at the menu for fifteen minutes now and the pictures that look like they were taken with someone’s old Polaroid are starting to all meld together into some sort of greasy hash. 

His hand shakes as he reaches for the glass of ice water and oh, that’s right, it’s the first time he’s eaten all day. Shot straight outta town before the sun even came up, been on the road since then, twice to stop for gas and a piss, and then that one time when he stopped because his phone rang and he didn’t recognize the number, so he pulled over anyway, but whoever it was didn’t leave a message and he didn’t call the number back, and then the next thing he knew, it was dark and this town shone up like those power plants he sees out in the distance sometimes, and the diner is right at the edge heading out the other side.

Dark fake wood paneling on the walls like this is any other place than a cheap greasy spoon, like maybe they’re going for friendly family dining, which means they have crappy coffee, but the gravy is probably excellent.

This guy comes wandering outta the kitchen with one hand in the pocket of his apron and a notepad in the other, an honest-to-God little spiral notebook like what Sam used to have at school, as if he was some kinda spy or something, but he actually took notes in it, not about the people around him, but all that lore stuff he’d find at the library, Latin declensions and name origins and ingredient lists. 

‘So,’ the guy says, chewing gum, ‘what’ll it be.’

He’s got this shaggy cut of hair, like a mullet but less defined and Dean wants to take a knife to it. Instead he bares his teeth and says, ‘Country fried steak. All the trimmings.’

‘You got it.’ The guy turns away, then half-turns back. ‘Refill on the coffee?’

It’s damn horrible coffee, but Dean’s got more driving to do before he can sleep. Or try to sleep. He hasn’t been able to sleep in the last three days, and he doesn’t know why. It's starting to piss him off.

‘Yeah, coffee,’ he says, and the guy shrugs, heads back to grab the pot.

As he slops coffee into Dean’s cup, the cook comes out and then the guy and the cook stand by the cash register and talk in low voices. The cook picks up the phone on the wall, that 70s color green, and says a few words and hangs up, goes back into the kitchen.

Dean’s rifled through his pockets and found a few crumpled receipts, gum wrappers, broken matches, about seventy-six cents in change and not much else. He coulda sworn he had some word searches torn outta newspapers the past few days, but they’re gone somewhere else and he’s left with nothing to do while he waits. Which he hates. 

Fumbling thick-fingered, he pulls out his phone and clicks through to check his messages.

None. 

A saved one. From ten months ago. He’s almost got it memorized, down to every intonation and breath.

He doesn’t listen to it. He turns to the window.

Good thing too, he can be a little lucky sometimes, able to land on his feet every once in a while, because while he’s staring out at the spreading night, that’s when the cop pulls into the parking lot.

The headlights shine right in Dean’s eyes and he blinks away, but doesn’t put a hand up, doesn’t want to attract attention.

Cop swaggers in, like he’s some kinda damn cowboy, his hat all pushed back on his head, his thumbs in his belt, to show off his holster and his belt buckle and the handcuffs dangling from a loop.

Cop sits down at the booth next to Dean’s, across from, so they can see each other and it’s not a show of force, it’s not even a show of strength, just this cop wanting to show his presence and hand on heart, Dean didn’t think he looked that dangerous tonight, yeah, he hasn’t slept, and he needs to shave, and his car is the finest piece of machinery to ever race on the highways of America like a bat outta hell, but he didn’t think he looked like a criminal tonight.

‘Bout that time, Dean’s fried steak and mashed potatoes with gravy and corn on the cob arrive and the waiter sets it all down as if he’s burned himself. Doesn’t stop to see if Dean needs anything else, just saunters over to the cop and asks do you want the usual, Pete, and the cop takes his hat off, nodding.

Cup of coffee for the poor working slob and Dean wants to salute him, not only for wearing the badge like it’s a birthmark on his skin, but for braving the coffee, and apparently, he does it often, maybe his tastebuds died years ago.

He doesn’t duck his head, Dad telling him that if you act guilty, then you probably are guilty, so hold your head up and don’t look around, so he eats as the cop talks to the waiter and then again the cook when he pulls a chair up to the booth and they drink coffee, shoot the shit, and the cop eats something that looks like it might be a burger, onions and tomato falling out the end.

The coffee is still shit and the gravy is excellent, just like he thought, and he eats almost every last bite.

He eats, and the cop eats, and he drinks his coffee, waiting for the sting of the caffeine, but it doesn’t come before he’s done and saying, ‘Could I get the check?’

Money on the table, and Dean’s out the door, ready to get back into the metal of his car and strike out through the night, maybe like the criminal he could be, but he isn’t wanted in this state, at least not that he can remember.

He almost forgets his phone.

 

[into the jaws] 

Fucking forest, so many damn trees, and Dean’s ducking and dodging, jumping over fallen branches and praying he doesn’t come across a log bigger’n he is, he’s not built like Sam, who ran track at one of those countless high schools, going over the hurdles like they were nothing at all, long legs pumping, and Dean swerves just in time because the motherfucking loup-garou bursts out onto his right and it’s like a prize fight as they eye each other.

She snarls and of course, just Dean’s luck, it’s a woman, bitten by her son’s best friend, of all people, hey, Mrs. Jones, got any of those oatmeal cookies, here my mom sent over this casserole and she said to tell y’all dinner on Thursday, they’ll have the gin ready if y’all bring the cards, see ya, and man oh man, what a way to repay your best friend’s mom.

The guns always feel different in his hands when they’re loaded with silver bullets, it’s almost like a superstition or your imagination, dummy, it’s just your imagination, Sam would say, rolling his eyes, but when he’s staring down the barrel at a werewolf with her mouth open at him and that dying look in her bloodshot eyes, it’s not his imagination, he knows it, the gun is different because of the silver, like any crucifix anyone’s ever held and prayed over.

And this ain’t a myth, this ain’t a legend, this is Dean’s life, as the mother of two circles him, outta-her-mind predator and he’s not prey, he’s never gonna be prey, so when she darts to the side and then at him, he pulls the trigger.

It’s the only way to fix things. It’s the only thing he knows to do.

 

[nothing for miles]

This is like mother’s milk, being on the road, foot on the gas, and the windows rolled down. Nothing quite like it, and Dean thinks that this must be what freedom is, the American dream right here, a full tank of gas and miles of open road and it ain’t the destination, pal, it’s the journey.

Manifest destiny on those highways, and the music’s so loud it’s distorted in the speakers, so loud over the wind like he was born deaf and can now hear, he follows the road as if he was blind and can now see.

A month ago, he’d walked out of a house that had a sign over the door _by the grace of God go I_ , and the old man had shook his hand, said, That there’s a nice car, young man, you take good care of it; like my grandpappy always said, trust in God, but lock your doors.

The old man meant well, and Dean shook his hand like Dad taught him, that man probably fought in a war for you before you were even a twinkle in my eye, he’d say, and so Dean promised to lock his doors.

So Dean’s headed down the highway, not looking at the needle, just letting it bury, and he knows he’s going fast by the way the car sways on the road and the tires hum loud like the wind and speakers.

He doesn’t know how anyone could give this up, fast burn of happiness as if he’s joyriding, with nothing to do but put the pedal to the metal and let the engine purr, what his baby was built for, long straightaways to rip to shreds as she smiles so prettily.

There’s nothing but nothing out here, not a car in sight, and it’s like he’s the only person left driving these highways, like he’s haunting the asphalt and this is his afterlife, nothing but nothing out here and the road stretches on like heaven.

 

[stoplights and carnival rides]

Eighteen. No, nineteen. He’s been driving for nineteen hours straight and it’s four in the afternoon, which makes everything surreal because he’s so tired and ready to sleep for days, but it’s only four and the sun won’t disappear for hours. 

This town is somewhere between where he’s been and where he’s going and so right here is just fine, he’ll stop here, bed, food, and then back on the road. Apparently, the motel is the only one in town and that’s fine too, he isn’t exactly choosy.

Dean goes through the motions: checks in, takes the key, smiles at the girl whose nametag reads Hannah, and drives down to the room because he likes to have the car close, close enough to keep an eye on it or run out to it to jump in and haul ass if necessary. Both of those things have come to pass in the past, so it’s habit now, parking the car outside the room and even though it’s a bright black arrow pointing to where he sleeps, it’s better than any other alternative, a fighting chance is a fighting chance.

The world’s going gray at the edges of his vision, things skittering away outta sight as he drags his duffel into the room and kicks the door shut.

The bed doesn’t smell weird, which is a first in at least six hundred miles, and Dean falls asleep right away.

When he wakes, he doesn’t know why, he’s been startled awake, and he’s got a knife in his hand and his feet on the floor before he registers he’s standing. But it’s just him in the room and then he hears it, something like gunshots.

Fireworks.

The girl from the front desk is carrying a stack of towels, walking past, and she gasps as blue and green blossom and then die in golden sparks in the dusk. She sees him standing in the doorway and smiles. ‘The fair,’ she says, pointing, towels balanced carefully. ‘You should come.’

It’s after seven and he knows he looks as disheveled as he feels, so he tries to smile back, _not a criminal_ , and her smile grows. ‘You can come with me,’ she says, ‘lemme go put these towels down.’ 

Not a good idea, and Dean tells himself that, _not a good idea_ , but then he’s in the bathroom, trying to clean up, and as he looks in the mirror, he realizes that her nametag said Katy and wasn’t it Hannah earlier?

A knock on the door and he says under his breath _not a good idea_. Opens the door, and she’s still there, and she says, ‘I won’t bite.’

She leads him away from the motel, across the street and down a few blocks, and they don’t talk, just walk and look for the fireworks as they explode overhead, the shrill whistles piercing the night as it saunters in, and Dean doesn’t think of bullets.

The fair is set up across the baseball and football fields and spills over into the parking lot of the local high school. There are people everywhere and Dean’s looking for the exits.

The girl takes his hand, and she isn’t wearing a nametag anymore; she doesn’t offer her name and he doesn’t offer his, and she pulls him along like he isn’t almost a foot taller than her, like she isn’t a small waif-doll with her long hair held back in a braid and ink drawings on her sneakers. 

She’s old enough, he thinks, she looks old enough, but he’s never been good at women and their ages, so he tugs on her hand, drags her back to him, and says, ‘Wait, what’re you doin’. How old are you?’

Her laughter is drowned out by noises from the carnival rides, from the fireworks as they burst and die, and in the space between, she says, ‘Twenty-one. Had my birthday last week. Good enough for ya?’

When he nods, there are bright-colored lights reflecting in her eyes, and she leans up to put her palms on his face. She kisses him and he kisses back because this is new and he’s a quick learner.

He doesn’t know how long they kiss, but then someone yells something, and she pulls away, pulls him into the shadows by the corn dog vendor and kisses him again. She fits against him, so small, and he wants, she’s so soft and smells so good and this outta nowhere is nothing like anything he’s ever had.

His fingers skid under her shirt, across her belly and she moans into his mouth, she says a name, but it isn’t his, he never said, he never told her, then someone yells something and she pulls away again.

‘Don’t go anywhere,’ she says, her lips swollen, and she runs off, disappears into the messy crowd of people.

But Dean’s not gonna stick around, his blood’s sped up and he needs to walk, he needs to get out and the fireworks are booming loud like bombs dropping on his head.

So he walks, shaking out his wrists and hands, and finds a ticket kiosk. He rides every ride, twice, and Sam woulda hated the spinning cups, Dean can almost see the look on his brother’s face as he hands over a ticket to ride.

The lights are bright and there’s noise from every direction and he buys three flavors of cotton candy, takes one bag back to the motel. Sam loves cotton candy, all the sweets that kid could eat, no wonder he turned out so thin, and Dean decides the bag of cotton candy will be his breakfast, blue, naturally.

The girl never comes back. He leaves at dawn and there’s a different girl at the front desk. Her nametag says Julie.

 

[words on paper]

The dog days of summer and Dean doesn't think that Sam's off from school, doesn't think about visiting or driving to the coast to see the girls in their bikinis and hats.

Fancypants exorcism, and he heard from Dad’s friend Bobby, Sam called him Uncle Bobby, but Dean thinks he himself just called him Bobby from day one, he heard from Bobby who heard from another hunter who heard from another hunter that there was a new exorcism out there, not for demons, but for that malevolence that’s like demon and spirit rolled into one, some things from the shadows just cling better than others.

So he’s headed off to Memphis to fetch this exorcism, the hunter who has it only gives it out in person, won’t do it over the phone, and all hunters have their quirks, their compulsions and gambling habits, so Dean can understand, superstitions go hand in glove with this business.

So damn warm and humid in the south and even having the windows down doesn’t help any.

He finds the address after a few backtrackings and wrong turns. It’s a house and this is one of the lucky ones, the hunters who get to have a home.

Crow feathers hang from the windchimes and the porch smells like ashes and Dean would bet good money there’s a devil’s trap under the welcome mat, the one that says _beware of the dog_.

He can’t hear a dog and when he rings the doorbell, there’s nothing but something like music and a voice that yells, ‘Come in! Be down in a sec!’

Not a man. A woman hunter and Dean grins to himself. 

The screen door slams behind him and the music’s coming from an old stereo system in the front room. Janis Joplin wails and there’s footsteps on the stairs, so he says, ‘I don’t see a dog.’

‘Hellhounds, baby, hellhounds,’ she says as she walks into view.

She's wearing jeans and a stack of colored bracelets and nothing else, her breasts like apples, her stomach flat where her jeans hang on her hipbones and she carries a bottle of Jack, bouncing against her thigh. Her hair’s wet, in damp dark streaks and waves.

‘Sorry, but it’s hot and I wanted to cool off,’ she says and Dean tries to look away, but she snaps her fingers at him, ‘No, no, none of that. I ain’t shy and I can tell you ain’t either.’

On a chain, she wears a claw of some sort, Dean isn't sure, he's used to only seeing the claws on werewolves and wendigos, skinwalkers and other things with teeth. A necklace like Dean's, though he bets the single person in her world didn't give it to her. It hangs between her breasts, bare as bone against her brown skin and the claw moves as she opens the bottle and takes a drink, she doesn’t hiss, just says, ‘What can I do you for.’

‘Exorcism,’ Dean says, hands in his pockets. 

‘Ah yeah, that ol’ thing,’ she says and she pushes the bottle at him so he has to take it or let it shatter. ‘In my desk. Somewhere.’ 

She’s shoving papers and books around, not looking at where they fall, and Dean stares at the round curve of her ass, wondering, but she’d probably break in him half, a female hunter who walks around in her living room barefoot and topless and drinks Jack straight like it’s water, he loves a challenge, but oh, he loves his dick too and he’d like to keep it.

Doesn’t even have to turn around, she opens a drawer and says, ‘Honey, you’re cute, but it’s too hot today and there’s a storm coming, so I hate to turn you down.’  
He laughs and says, ‘Fair enough.’

She looks over her shoulder, hair leaving wet smears on her arms, and says, ‘But I’ll give ya my number. For a good time, call.’

He laughs again and hears a skittering on the floor upstairs and remembers her remark, _hellhounds, baby_. He says Christo, hiding it in a cough, but she doesn’t flinch, just says, ‘Found it.’

Snatching around for a pen, she scribbles on the piece of paper, and then trades it for the bottle.

Dean’s never been good with payment, never expects to get paid, never knows who wants what for what and when. The regular normal world wants cash and credit cards. His world always wants its pound of flesh, but this is an exorcism, Latin printed on paper, so he kinda shuffles his feet, waiting for her to name her price.  
Instead, she watches him, head tilted, and then she leans back on her hands, breasts pushed at him like temptation, and she sips the Jack, says, ‘What’d you say your name was?’

‘Dean,’ he says. ‘Dean Winchester.’

She licks her lips and nods. ‘I’ve heard of a fella named John Winchester. Any relation?’

The air feels tight, the skittering on the floor upstairs, and there is a storm coming somewhere, the windchimes tinkling softly. ‘Yeah.’

Her dark eyes go into slits and she looks at him like Sam did whenever Dean was lying, when he could see right through Dean, but couldn’t see the truth.

She says, ‘This is it, sweetheart, you’re alone now.’

There’s sweat running down her skin and he can feel sweat running down his spine and it’s like he’s been dropped down a hole, looking up in vain to see the sky.

‘What’re you gonna do? So alone, boy, so alone.’

Gritting his teeth, Dean says, ‘How much for the exorcism.’

She grabs the bottle, her claw pendant swinging out as she stands and rubs at her mouth, considering.

‘It’s a gift,’ she says. ‘You’re gonna need it.’

He nods and folds the paper, slides it into his pocket. He needs to leave. Now. A sense, a soldier's sense, something ain't right and he ain't sticking around to find out what. Skittering like claws on the floor upstairs and she laughs.

‘Storm’s coming. Best get outta town.’

Crow feathers in the windchimes and devil’s shoestring tied in knots over the door and Dean’s never seen a claw like that before, anywhere.

As the door slams, he hears her call after him, ‘I thought John Winchester had two sons.’

 

[four star]

He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the accommodations, Dean has to stop, he’s been living on coffee and a prayer, if he prayed, and he can’t stop thinking of Sam, which could be as good as praying, so maybe he’ll be saved, maybe.

Three weeks and he’s been driving like Hell’s riding out for his skin, he doesn’t know why, it’s just a crawling feeling up and down his veins and he was fine, he was doing just fucking fine, but now.

Dean can’t stop thinking of Sam.

It almost got him killed, left him with a huge bruise over his heart and down his ribs, to his hip, slammed into the side of a mausoleum, of all places. 

This motel is ugly as hell, but it has four walls and a roof and he’s salted the door and windows, so it’ll do, it’ll do because Dean needs to stop, he needs to sleep, he needs to let the pills take him over.

The wallpaper is a dusty red, and Dean tries not to think of blood. There’s a mirror on the ceiling, so he can see himself when he stares up, and it’s disconcerting, like he’s having an out-of-body experience amidst the dusty red, floating in a lake of his own blood, and the bruises are so black on his body.

Fuck. He keeps thinking of Sam.

The room is deadly quiet except for his breathing and it’s all wrong because he’s alone, there’s only his breathing and he’s used to listening for Sam, falling asleep listening to Sam, and sometimes, before, Sam’s hand on his thigh in the dark. Sometimes, his hand on Sam’s mouth and Sam’s eyes sharp cut, clear and glinting.

The television doesn’t break when he throws the remote.

The comforter stinks like old alcohol, so he strips it off the bed. 

He falls asleep in the bathroom, curled up in the bathtub as best he can fit, and the yellowish tiles are cold against his forehead when he wakes.

There’s a loud crack, and the lights go out. It’s pitch black and Dean fumbles around, shivering, wet, almost falls against the sink before he gets out into the room.

Voices outside and he hears someone say, Sounds like something blew, maybe a transformer, but we’ll check on it, see when the power’ll be back on.

When they knock on his door, he doesn’t answer.

Just sits on the edge of the bed in the dark. At least he can’t see himself anymore, can’t see himself thinking of Sam.

Maybe he’ll be saved.

[humming wires]

Nebraska, this could be Nebraska, he thinks, but he isn’t sure. Nebraska and fields and he’s driving through, state line to state line, when his phone beeps.

Resting on the seat, it beeps again and he grabs it up.

Low battery. Dean hasn’t had a text or a call in over a month and a half. He usually puts it in his pocket like he does his wallet, his keys, tucks the gun into his jeans, takes it outta his pocket like he does his wallet, his keys, takes the gun from his jeans. He’s forgotten to charge it. 

Gravel and dirt fly up as he pulls over, sun-browned fields stretched out in every direction, and he puts the car in park, rubbing the phone in his fingers, like Sam rubbing a lucky penny, a shiny one he found heads up, rubbing it so he can keep the good luck, here, I’ll give it to you, Dean, gimme your hand, and Sam stopped doing that when he was eleven.

Flipping open his phone, Dean thinks, What in the hell are you doing, he thinks about Sam, how Sam at seventeen would tell him there’s no such thing as luck. Finds Sam’s number and waits.

He wants to call. He should call. He needs to know Sam’s okay, that Sam’s moving on down the road.

But Dean knows that Sam might not even answer. Take one look at the caller ID and back away slowly. Sam’s a smart kid, he’s good at avoiding danger. Phones can be detonators and he doesn’t want to be the destruction in Sam’s new life. 

It’s Sam though. Dean needs to know. 

That message saved on his phone from such a long time ago, the voice probably doesn’t even sound the same now.

The phone beeps and shuts itself off.

Dean sighs and tips his head back. Then he shifts into drive, gets on the road and keeps going. Nebraska, from state line to state line.

 

[criminal tendencies]

He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not like he’s robbed a bank or mugged someone at gunpoint or shot someone between the eyes.

The sheriff sees a dead body, a shack half on fire and hears the Impala’s tires peeling out. But Dean didn’t do anything wrong; the body was an abandoned demon host and the demon started the fire anyway. It didn’t like the exorcism Dean had, and threw a tantrum before leaving him with a young man who should be playing college baseball, crumpled on the ground like he didn’t have any bones.

So Dean’s gettin’ the hell outta Dodge, and two cop cars pass him on the road. In his rearview mirror, he sees one of them peel off to chase him, lights flaring like an electrical storm and the siren screeching, emergency broadcast system style, and Dean floors it.

He can’t remember what state he’s in, whether he has warrants out for his arrest here, mugshots and fingerprints on file, he pushes the car faster and Styx is on the radio and this shouldn’t be any different from any other time he’s been ran outta town, but he’s fighter pilot solo tonight, no one to watch his back and he’s not gonna sing about the time he fought the law, but the law won, so he floors it with the lights filling up his mirror.

Tiny little dirt road and he wishes the car around the harsh corner, his baby wanting to hit the long arrow road, but he has others plans and she isn’t happy about spinning off into the dark, off to the side, to wait with the headlights extinguished, hoping the dust will settle before the cop arrives.

Cop cruises past just as Dean snaps the radio off and he sits there for a moment in the dark, the engine idling impatiently and he turns in the seat to stare out the back window and wait.

The sound dopplers around, that mournful sharp moan that shatters and rebuilds like glass, and Dean ducks, forehead to the seat, breathing out, breathing in. 

Cop goes back by and Dean counts to fifty, hearing Sam in his head, _one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi four Mississippi_ , counting during thunderstorms and hide-and-seek and anytime Dean had to stitch him up.

Fifty, then Dean eases out onto the road, slow as he can take her, and drives the next twenty miles without lights.

It’s eerie, a road through Purgatory, and maybe that’s how it should be. 

 

[tire tracks]

See, there was this girl. Long legs, blonde hair caught up in a ponytail, great rack with her t-shirt stretched tight across it. She’d bought him a drink, said, You look like you could use a whiskey, and then proceeded to drink with him and put her hand on his thigh.

Her bed had a pink bedspread, and was one of the softest he’d been in, but he was drunk and when he fucked her, made her moan over and over, he couldn’t remember her name.

It wasn’t her fault, she was nice and let him use her shower, then went on her knees for him under the water, didn’t hold any illusions about him staying and saving her, she had steel edges under her summer tank top and holey jeans, she knew the score and didn’t play games.

So he’s driving away and she says, Next time you’re in town, and he kisses her goodbye, all whiskey and sugar, because she kept cookies by her bed.

He’s driving away and right as he turns the corner, the skies crack and it’s pouring and suddenly, Dean remembers he’s drunk and he doesn’t know where he’s going.

He knows better, don’t drive when you’re fucked up and always know where you’re going and then the odds’ll be better that you’ll stay alive longer. But he’s alone and he really doesn’t care, Dean knows he’ll die sooner rather than later.

It’d be a crying shame to take his baby down with him though.

Some asshole flies past in the rain, skimming close into Dean’s lane and he swerves and that’s it, the car hydroplanes and he’s fighting her for control and they’re both panicking, he doesn’t want to hear that metal death cry and the aftermath rattle of glass and steel, he knows pain, but that doesn’t mean he seeks it out.

Fuck, he steers as best he can and then he’s in screeching into the ditch and the car rocks, but stands steady.

And ain’t that just the way things go. 

It’s raining to beat the band, Dean’s hit his head on the doorframe and the car groans a little as they sit there. 

Outta nowhere, he needs to call Sam. Let him know Dean’s been in an accident, but he’s okay, no harm no foul, he thinks, maybe, he and the car’ll be okay, live to break the law another day.

A bump on the head, shoulder’s a bit sore, and the car isn’t in a twisted heap. They’ll live.

It rings on Sam’s end, somewhere in California, three hours behind, it’s gotta be midnight out on the shining West Coast. 

But three hours behind and Sam doesn’t answer and Dean doesn’t blame him. After all. What they’ve been through and how they’d pushed each other against that graffitied diner wall, trying to stay quiet, two days before Sam hightailed it out. So he doesn’t leave a message.

There’s nothing he can do. He’s drunk and his face feels wet when he searches out the bruise on his head and when he glances out the windshield at the pouring sky, there’s a faint flash to everything.

He turns the car off and locks the doors and crawls into the backseat, fighting down nausea. He doesn’t bleed in his car and doesn’t vomit. Easy rules, but they’re usually broken and he always begs forgiveness and she always forgives him.

Dean hopes she’ll forgive him this time. Someone has to.

He falls asleep to the sound of the rain and the whitewash sounds of cars on the wet pavement.

In the morning, there’s long dual tracks, deep black marks where he skidded, to show him where he’s been and just how fucking stupid he is.

 

[neon oblivion]

The bar is either genius or trying too hard. There’s neon signs everywhere, like it’s the Vegas of Idaho. The one Dean’s staring at is centered right over the back of the bar and informs him that you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

He salutes it with a shot of tequila. Whiskey bruises him. He’s trying his luck with tequila tonight.

AC/DC on the juke and dammit all to hell, there was that one time, the day Dad told the two of ‘em to get in the Impala and head west, got a job for you two, think you can handle it, I’ll be right behind you, there’s a haunting I’m gonna check out, so you call me and we’ll meet somewhere in the middle, got it, and from the flare of Sam’s eyes, Dean could tell he was as excited and relieved as Dean, the two of ‘em out on the road in Dean’s newly-gifted baby, away from Dad, trying their hand at this remarkable thing, there was that one time because when they lit out after grabbing donuts, Sam found “Back in Black” and kept reaching over to rewind it, played the damn song again and again, and the tape finally gave out a month later because he’d been stuck on that song, like the adrenaline rush of them flying along, impossible brothers, and Sam’s why-do-I-do-this grin when he gave Dean a new copy of the album, dammit all to hell.

Dean flags down the bartender. ‘Yeah, gimme another shot, no, bring me a coupla shots and a beer.’

He walked here, the motel’s not that far, he’s got a gun as always in his jeans and a knife in his boot and his knuckles ache for a fight, but maybe not tonight, with how the neon’s glossy and buzzing, and the alcohol’s going straight to his head.

There’s an empty booth and AC/DC on the juke, so he gathers up his liquor, sits down and sprawls out and he wants to be left alone.

Time only counts when you’re not drinking, so it hasn’t been months since he last spoke to anyone for more than a few sentences about anything, it hasn’t been months since he checked his messages again only to find that saved one sitting there like a scar, it hasn’t been months since he’s only heard his own voice when he sings in the car or the shower or orders a pizza. 

Right this very second, he’s gonna drink this shot of tequila and chase it with beer because right this very second, it’s the best idea he’s ever had.

He’ll bet the title to the Impala that Sam doesn’t find some bar somewhere out in California where it’s bright even at night and get shitfaced because being blackout drunk helps him sleep or makes the night go faster or wipes away all those memories. He’ll bet that Sam doesn’t wake up with his right hand around a bottle and his left hand around a gun, even though he took a gun with him and liquor’s cheap.

He’ll bet that Sam’s forgotten how to even spell ‘Dean.’

The tequila’s gone and the beer is only half gone and this isn’t going fast enough. 

 

[one a.m. somewhere north]

Cold out here. The coordinates Dad sent mean it’s the middle of the nowhere, middle of the night and cold. Even for this season, it’s cold and Dean shivers.

He’s waiting on a yeth hound, and that right there would’ve gotten Sam, a yeth hound, not your ordinary run-of-the-mill black dog. Dean learned all of his research tricks from Sam, but still can’t quite master whatever Sam did to pull the answers from the ether. Like the kid was a magnet, or had a magic all his own, because if he asked a question, there’d damned well be an answer coming over the horizon.

This yeth hound thing, Dean’s actually excited to see it. Some lore says it’s headless and some lore says it has fiery red eyes and hellish breath, but how can you have eyes and a mouth if you’re headless? Honestly, sometimes Dean doesn’t get lore.

Cold road, crossroads ahead, cemetery on down a ways and if the yeth hound is gonna show up anywhere along this stretch, it’ll be here.

So Dean waits. He’s been out here since sundown and will be here until sunup. 

Cold, but he doesn’t wanna run the risk of turning on the engine, just rubs his hands together.

This one time, him and Sam had been in the woods, hiding in the trees, waiting for Dad to flush out this darkness-possessed bear, one of the weirdest hunts they’d been on, and one of the most dangerous because grizzlies ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at and a spirit-possessed grizzly hellbent on destruction made you take stock in your well-being and sanity. They were waiting in the trees and it was cold, see-your-breath cold, and they couldn’t talk for fear of ruining the ambush, but at one point, Sam leaned in and rested his forehead between Dean’s shoulderblades. Didn’t say a word, and they stood there like that, comfort on a cold night, and some nights, like these when he’s waiting, Dean’ll feel an itch, there, high up, right between his shoulders.

This so-called yeth hound might not even show, its prowling isn’t consistent like any predatory beast though like anything that loves haunted, blood-on-the-ground places, it’s territorial and it won’t give up its right to stalk this road, one way or another.

It’s not like he’ll fall asleep, still can’t sleep, so he watches and waits.

Cold out here, and Dean shivers a little.

The sky is so clear, he wants to put a bullet in it.

 

[state lines]

Broad daylight and his brain is being louder’n it has any right to be. Days like these, out on the road, and his thoughts driving him nuts, he’ll turn up the radio to match the noise in his head and there’s so much bend and feedback, the two’ll cancel each other out.

But today, Dean has the radio off, and that luck thing comes back in full force, on his side and that might be the joke, because with only the engine and road noise, he hears the blip-blip of the cop car siren before he even sees the guy.

State trooper, mirrored sunglasses and everything, and Dean’s got his registration ready, a different name other than Winchester, and he’s found his ID that matches by the time the cop says, ‘Nice day for a drive, son.’

‘Yessir, it is,’ Dean says, and he knows better than to underestimate law enforcement, just go along and don’t even look like you’re living breathing trouble.

‘Musta been enjoyin’ it, I figure you’s goin’ ‘bout ninety.’

‘My apologies there, sir, no cruise control on these older cars.’ It’s a well-worn excuse, one that Dad used for years before he got that chrome-hearted monster of a truck.

Cop laughs, eyes still hidden behind the shades reflecting tiny circles of Dean. ‘And this’s a beaut, son, a real beaut. You take good care of her?’

‘Every day, sir.’

‘Good for you.’ Cop nods, like Dean’s following a script. ‘Well, no harm done, I think I can let you off with a stern warning. So this’s your stern warning.’

Dean smiles, acting grateful and he is grateful because way to go, genius, last thing you need is your name on file with the cops again. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘All right now, go on, get back on the road, but mind, I’ll keep an eye out for this oil slick,’ cop says, and he pats the roof.

‘Understood,’ Dean says. ‘Thank you again.’

He breathes out hard, and he’s never been afraid of the cops, only afraid of being thrown in jail when there’s work to be done, or when he was younger, taken away from Sammy when the kid was still a runt, smaller than Dean.

Easing back onto the road, hands at ten and two, and the trooper passes him, state name emblazoned on the side and Dean thinks, Huh, Ohio, and then there’s a road sign telling him he’s headed east and fuck, he’s going completely the wrong way, how did he get so turned around, he’s in Ohio and he’s not supposed to be going east, he’s supposed to be headed south and west.

This never happened when he had someone in the shotgun seat. Even when Sam was asleep, Dean knew where they were.

He might be wanted in Ohio, he can’t remember, so he drives sedately to the next town, hands at ten and two, and when he gets there, he finds the nearest store and library. 

At the store, Dean wanders until he finds the school supplies, and there they are, boxes of map pencils. Doesn’t think twice, just swipes a box, and it’s an echo of Sam’s school days, a life cycle of Dean stealing map pencils for the kid, because all those geography, social studies and history teachers always demanded the little colored pencils for class. On the way out, he picks up a few magazines and some candy, a two-liter Dr. Pepper. Those he pays for. The pencils hide in his jacket.

At the library, he commandeers a computer and finds a blank map of the U.S., prints it off, and leaves a dime for the paper in the little can nearby. And hey, he’s here, might as well, he’s at a computer in the back of the library’s miniscule ‘technology room’, as the placard proudly says, so painstakingly slowly, Dean starts looking up his own records, and it’s both depressing and encouraging to see that he’s so beloved and wanted by so many police departments across this great country.

He covers his tracks, just like the geekodrome taught him and he hopes that Sam’s putting those skills to good use in California, otherwise, Dean didn’t teach him half as well as he thought he did.

All those mugshots, and hey, Sam got out.

And suddenly, Dean is exhausted, drained down deep into his bones.

Sighing, he gathers up the map and his jacket, makes sure he has his keys and drives to the first diner he sees.

Cup of coffee, and it’s some damn good coffee, so after he orders the pie special of the day and spreads the map out on the table, he chooses a color from the box of pencils and puts a dot in Ohio, marks it coffee. Excellent coffee’s hard to come by, and Dean’s not about to lose a decent diner with excellent coffee somewhere in the wide breadth of the U.S.

He doesn’t care that he’s a grown man, drinking coffee and eating pie in the bright afternoon, coloring in a map. He chooses the colors, one by one, finds the states that are out for his blood and shades them in.

Sam always stuck within the lines; a kid in Sam’s first grade once told him he had to color within the lines, and Sam took it as gospel, same as everything else, and Dean tried to tell him it was his picture, he could color it however he wanted, but Sam stared up at him, hair in his eyes, like it would be even years later when he was older and tall as Dean, stared at him like he just knew Dean was wrong.

The pie is thick and heavy and settles in Dean’s stomach, anchoring him briefly in this moment.

He drinks his coffee, licks the tines of the fork and stares at the map.

Carefully, he colors California red, and he doesn’t think about why.

The map goes in the glove compartment, for the next time he crosses state lines.

Going across state lines doesn’t seem like much, but state lines are boundaries, like so many other things.

It’s good to know where you’re going, and you have to know what you’re getting yourself into.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Train To Jackson” by Jeffrey Foucault.


End file.
